Lieckio Report post Posted November 30, 2017 Hello As a new member, I am not quite sure if this is the right place, but.... First off, let me start with a bit of a background info. I am by no means a professional leatherworker. My day job is prop making / replicating for films, theaters, reenactors etc. This includes doing some work on leather every now and then (wish I could do it for a living though). For past 4 years I've used the same supplier of leather and other leather working products just fine. But yesterday I ran into a problem I haven't faced ever before. As you can see from the attached picture, I was in the process of making some leather items for a project and moved on to dyeing the leather. Previously I have gotten desired results with just slapping the dye on, two layers and gotten a nice, even, smooth, reddish brown colour on the leather. This time after the first layer all my leather was looking like in the attached image. Blotchy etc., as if I had been using too much dye (which can't be the case). The thing is, like I said, for past 4 years I've gotten my leather and dye from the same supplier and I've had 0 problems with my process, so I am a bit at loss here. I've ended up wasting a good 100 euros worth of leather now and a days work so far which annoys me. Is this caused by grease or some other contaminant on the leather surface? Should I be cleaning my leather from now on before dyeing to avoid problems like this in the future? How to clean the leather? Any products to recommend or so? The leather dye I've used with great success until now is ROC Narusværte, Danish leather dye. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
bikermutt07 Report post Posted November 30, 2017 I would have to guess that this is poor leather, since you mentioned no previous problems with the dye. I have a side and a half of 3oz veg from Tandy that always comes out ugly, unless I dye it full strength. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Mattsbagger Report post Posted November 30, 2017 25 minutes ago, bikermutt07 said: I would have to guess that this is poor leather, since you mentioned no previous problems with the dye. I have a side and a half of 3oz veg from Tandy that always comes out ugly, unless I dye it full strength. Ditto Mutt. I have about 6 square inches left of my Tandy 3 oz left. It didn't even want to dye black nice.lol Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Lieckio Report post Posted December 1, 2017 Hmm, that is fairly strange as this is the same leather I've always ordered, from the same supplier as well. There's nothing visibly wrong with them either. I guess I can just dye them really dark, but it's not really ideal... It affected two separate pieces as well... I guess I'll have to contact the supplier and see what they have to say. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Lieckio Report post Posted December 1, 2017 I contacted the supplier and apparently the composition of the dye has been changed without them knowing it at some point. I did open a new bottle for these, but had bought the bottle some 6 months ago so they didn't know I would be affected by it. Apparently the dye needs more rubbing and working now to get it to soak properly, unless I mix acetone in it. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Mattsbagger Report post Posted December 1, 2017 3 hours ago, Lieckio said: I contacted the supplier and apparently the composition of the dye has been changed without them knowing it at some point. I did open a new bottle for these, but had bought the bottle some 6 months ago so they didn't know I would be affected by it. Apparently the dye needs more rubbing and working now to get it to soak properly, unless I mix acetone in it. That sounds like a water based dye. Ok that's what you do with the Tandy Waterstains. Good luck. They always want to change things don't They? Hey this works fine and everybody likes it..... Let change the formula.lol Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Lieckio Report post Posted December 4, 2017 Yeah, I am slightly annoyed with the change and the fact that I didn't know about this. :D Oh well, did some test runs now and it seems that I just need to keep on rubbing it in rather than just quickly swipe the area to cover it. This mean's I can't get the nice reddish brown colour anymore, but end up with a slightly darker red-brown colour. But that is fine with me, will have to look for another dye for the future though. So in case anyone ever does a forum search and finds this, just rub it in properly for some 20 seconds and the dye will come out even and smooth. Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
